The present invention relates to a method for operating a process and/or production installation. In addition, the present invention relates to an apparatus for operating a process and/or production installation.
In the planning and the operation of process and/or production installations, so-called tool chains are normally used. These consist of a number of engineering systems which are connected to one another along a predetermined operating sequence. In this context, output files are generated by the respective engineering systems which are transferred to the other engineering systems. For example, a signal list from a CAE program (CAE—Computer Aided Engineering) is used for programming control units. In this context, it is difficult to check dependences of the individual output files on one another. For example, an upper limit value is defined for the temperature measurement with a CAE tool. Later, this value is transferred, using export and import functions, to an engineering system which is used for controlling the control units. Later, this limit value can be changed by means of an engineering system or by a monitoring and control unit. By this means, inconsistencies between the data which are provided with the CAE tool and the data which are provided by the engineering system for controlling the control units can arise. In this process, the persons who operate the installation are not informed about these contradictions, however. In addition, version management is not supported in most of the engineering systems.
To solve this problem, different tools and/or processes are normally provided. Examples of this are organizational processes or engineering processes by means of which changes can be monitored. However, these special functions are usually used only in particular applications or engineering systems. For example, a so-called “upload” function is provided with the SIMATIC PCS 7 tool by means of which current parameters and values are transferred from the installation back into the associated engineering system. Usually, the operators of the installation are responsible for avoiding such inconsistencies. For the purpose of documentation and for project management, table calculation programs or text processing programs are normally used.